Twenty-odd years ago on a tourist trip to Israel, I was struck by the way our Jewish guide took pride in his people’s special place in history. Talking of the Jerusalem temple, he joked that Jews had a hotline to God. Though a tongue-in-cheek comment, it was incongruous that an atheist who did not seek God derived a sense of worth from belonging to a people who were special because they were chosen by God. It is comparable to some in the West who are proud of democratic ideals like justice or the dignity of all human beings while scathing of the Bible, which gave us those principles. Similarly, Judah was proud of her heritage and its external symbols (the Temple – Jer 7:4-7, God’s law – Jer 8:8, and, likely, circumcision as a sign of God’s covenant – Jer 9:25-26). Yet, they were wicked people who stubbornly followed their own desires and worshipped other gods (Jer 13:10). The outward marks of status were meaningless because the internal reality they signified was missing. How did the Lord address this problem?

The enacted parable

First, Jeremiah’s enacted parable highlighted what God would do to strip away Judah’s false pride (Jer 13:1-11). The people were symbolised by the linen loincloth or waistband (the meaning of the word is uncertain),[1] and were meant to ‘cling’ (davaq; Jer 13:11) to God. The word also occurs in Gen 2:24 (where the husband is ‘joined’ to his wife) and expresses a steady commitment rather than hanging on to someone emotionally. Linen was used for priestly garments, so it evoked Israel’s calling as a royal priesthood (Exod 19:6; 28:4-5). Like Jeremiah removed and buried the cloth by the Euphrates in Babylon until it rotted (Jer 13:4-8), so God would remove Judah from Himself in exile and thereby expose their internal reality of having hearts removed from Him. In the process, their pride in the symbols of their status as chosen and loved by God (the Temple and city) would be smashed to reveal how empty their assurance in these things were when they had no commitment to God. So often, the Lord has to remove those things that bolster our confidence, for us to acknowledge our inward emptiness or bankruptcy.

Shattering false pride

The rest of the chapter elaborates this shattering of Judah’s pride. Drinking cups of wine until everyone is intoxicated, is a common metaphor for God’s judgment (Jer 13:13-14; 25:15-16).[2] The image reflects the shock and dazed staggering of those experiencing the devastation from leadership to people. No compassion and not sparing the people indicate the certainty of judgment (v.14); a harsh statement necessary for a people who were quick to claim God’s mercy without turning away from sin.[3] Thus, royalty would be divested of their crowns (Jer 13:18), the people exiled (Jer 13:19) and dominated by Babylon, Judah’s former ally (NASB ‘companions’; Jer 13:21). Their devastation would be like the public humiliation of a woman caught in adultery, which identifies the people’s idolatry as spiritual prostitution (Jer 13:26-27). The language is deliberately provocative and offensive to awaken Judah to the reality.[4]

Living consistently

This passage challenges us to ask, whether there is a discrepancy between what we take pride in as signs of God’s approval and the inward reality of our relationship to God. In some cases, a successful ministry or a prosperous life may hide secret sin, in others the vibrancy of a church and its growing numbers can conceal spiritual immaturity. Some are proud that their church holds to the Word of God as their final authority or preaches right doctrine, yet members may fail to read and obey that same Word individually. Others revel in God’s grace, but it becomes an excuse to live as they please. While the Lord patiently endures with us for a while, there comes a time when those inconsistencies are exposed. In such situations, God’s message is the same as for Judah: an appeal to listen and not be arrogant (Jer 13:15), but to acknowledge God’s verdict as right (the sense of giving glory to God – Jer 13:6; Josh 7:19). May our lives demonstrate a consistency between what is visible on the outside and the internal state of our heart.

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[1] The word only occurs 14 times in the Old Testament (eight times in Jeremiah) and many of the references could fit either sense. 2 Kings 1:8; Isa 5:27; 11:5 (2x); Jer 13:1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 (twice in v.7); Ezek 23:15; Job 12:18. A loincloth was an undergarment that was wrapped around the thighs and tied at the waist (like a fitted skirt). However, this would not have been seen, so if Jeremiah’s symbolic actions were for the benefit of the people (and it is hard to see why God would have the prophet enact a parable just for himself), then a waistband worn over a tunic and visible to all would fit the context better. Further, the Hebrew text indicates a break after v.12a, ‘Therefore you are to speak this word to them’, so that the command refers back to the symbolic action and requires Jeremiah to explain its meaning to the people.

[2] Jesus uses this OT image to describe His own fate in taking on God’s judgment for us (e.g. Luke 22:42).

[3] The statement cannot mean a lack of pity or compassion in terms of feelings, since the Book of Jeremiah is full of expressions of how God grieves over His people’s failings and sufferings.

[4] For many modern readers, such humiliation reads like the validating of patriarchal abuse against women, which is admittedly horrifying. However, in ancient Israel the act itself would not have elicited alarm. Rather, it was shocking that God’s own people might be seen as deserving such treatment. God uses in Scripture the language and concepts familiar to the original culture in a way that made sense to them, and we should not judge such statements on the values of our modern context because it was never meant to have the kind of meaning that we may see in it.

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For interest – the location where the waistband was hidden

There is debate over the exact location where Jeremiah buried the waistband. The Hebrew Perath means the Euphrates River, but the journey there takes 3-4 months and since the prophet was to travel there and back twice, this would have meant a considerable time away from his ministry. In addition, there are no rocky areas near the Euphrates (cf. Jer 13:4).[1]

An alternative suggestion has been the village of Parah, which is about 9km north-east of Jerusalem and is situated in the kind of rocky terrain where something may be hidden as per the command in v.4. In Hebrew, ‘to the Euphrates’ is perathah (perath + ah [suffix that expresses the direction ‘to’]), while ‘to Parah’ is parathah (parah th + ah [the final ‘h’ in Parah changes to a ‘th’ before the suffix]). In other words, the difference in sound is one vowel. Just like word-play in Hebrew, which links two things based on the similarity of sounds in two words, so the connection here is made, one place (Parah) standing for the other (Euphrates).

Holladay connects this prophecy to earlier ones by Isaiah who described the invasion of the Assyrian empire (in the same location where Babylon came to be in Jeremiah’s time) as the flooding of the Euphrates River that swept into Judah up to the neck, i.e. to Jerusalem (Isa 8:7-8). Isaiah also described the people’s reaction to God’s judgment (coming through the Assyrian conquest) as a hiding in the clefts of rocks (Isa 2:20-21). These messages may be the background to the imagery of Jeremiah’s parable and if so, then it describes not so much the exile but the Babylonian conquest with the Euphrates inundating Judah’s land while the people hide in rocky caves, their pride destroyed.[2]

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[1] William L. Holladay points this out about the terrain near the Euphrates River. Jeremiah 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapters 1-25, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1986), 395.

[2] Ibid., 396-97.

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